I have always had lighter knives in the past, my favorite being a BM 51. Since I am a huge fan of Benchmade I finally laid down the money for a 62, and wow that sucker is heavy! The knife itself seems to be of great quality and the fit and finish is awesome, but I got to admit the weight is a definite turn off.

This got me thinking about how it might be lightened to a more friendly 5 or so ounces instead of 6.3 ounces.

I thought of a friend of the family who is a Master grade machinist. He has 35+ years of working at Boing and Spirit and often deals with tolerances in the 10,000ths of an inch (and he has to get it right or the 787 crashes into a fiery heap of twisted metal) and is capable of running machines such as lathes, devligs, and even ball nose end mills. My point here is he is not a run of the mill shop tech.

I was planning to give him the knife and see if he can think of a way to make it lighter while still maintaining as much balance (possibly better balance?) and material as possible. But thought I might get your guys' opinion on it as well.

Friend of mine--"Dude I'll give you a dollar everytime you get cut with that thing."Me--"Better hit up an ATM."